For more than thirty years, and through his television program, Fred Rogers (1928-2003), host, producer, writer and pianist, accompanied by his puppets and his many friends, spoke directly to young children about some of life's most important issues.
First few weeks of Lincoln's presidency where crucial for the direction the country would take. He had to bridge the gap between the victorious North and the jaded South and William H. Seward, his Secretary of State, played a crucial role.
Raised in the small all-Black Florida town of Eatonville, Zora Neale Hurston studied at Howard University before arriving in New York in 1925. She would soon become a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, best remembered for her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. But even as she gained renown in the Harlem literary circles, Hurston was also discovering anthropology at Barnard College with the renowned Franz Boas. She would make several trips to the American South and the Caribbean, documenting the lives of rural Black people and collecting their stories. She studied her own people, an unusual practice at the time, and during her lifetime became known as the foremost authority on Black folklore.
A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
Ric Burns unearths rarely seen footage and offers keen observations on the life and artistic influence of Andy Warhol. [Made for and aired on PBS's American Masters series.]
The story of the Black Panthers is often told in a scatter of repackaged parts, often depicting tragic, mythic accounts of violence and criminal activity; but this is an essential story, vibrant, human; a living and breathing chronicle of a pivotal movement that birthed a new revolutionary culture in America.
Taped for a two-part PBS Soundstage, Petty employs the Chicago locale as an entry into the blues and R&B that are at the foundation of rock & roll, and to a lesser extent, his music. Spread out over two DVDs, this results in a fascinating and exciting show, where the extensive covers are just as interesting as -- and arguably more interesting than -- the few hits he gets around to playing.
One of the world’s greatest ancient enigmas, the Nazca lines are a dense network of criss-crossing lines, geometric shapes, and animal figures etched across 200 square miles of Peruvian desert. Who created them and why? Ever since they were discovered in the 1920s, scholars and enthusiasts have raised countless theories about their purpose. Now, archaeologists have discovered hundreds of long-hidden lines and figures as well as evidence of ancient rituals, offering new clues to the origins and motivations behind the giant desert symbols.
A chronicle of Bob Dylan's strange evolution between 1961 and 1966 from folk singer to protest singer to "voice of a generation" to rock star.
The 2016 Broadway Revival of William Finn's Tony-winning musical. It tells the story of Marvin, a Jewish family man who leaves his wife and son for a male lover during the height of the AIDS crisis in 1980s New York City.
After getting her start in coffee shops Joni Mitchell went on to set a new standard, marrying music and lyrics with such songs as “Both Sides, Now.” While her early material is often categorized as “folk,” she became a household name with music that defies categorization.
A tribute to Gram Parsons, a pioneering artist in alternative country music, features performances by host John Hiatt, Sheryl Crow, the Mavericks, Emmylou Harris, Whiskeytown, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, Chris Hillman and Margot Timmons.
FRONTLINE untangles the mysterious web of satanic ritual abuse, psychiatric treatment, and insurance claims that escalated into millions of dollars. Were these professed victims of secret satanic cults really helped by the psychiatric care they received?
For more than 100 years, the Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of hope and refuge for generations of immigrants. In this lyrical, compelling and provocative portrait of the statue, Ken Burns explores both the history of America’s premier symbol and the meaning of liberty itself. Featuring rare archival photographs, paintings and drawings, readings from actual diaries, letters and newspapers of the day, the fascinating story of this universally admired monument is told. In interviews with Americans from all walks of life, including former New York governor Mario Cuomo, the late congresswoman Barbara Jordan and the late writers James Baldwin and Jerzy Kosinski, The Statue of Liberty examines the nature of liberty and the significance of the statue to American life. Nominated for both the Academy Award ® and the Emmy Award ®, The Statue of Liberty received the prestigious CINE Golden Eagle, the Christopher Award and the Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival.
A documentary about child actors, since the beginning of motion pictures (narrated by Roddy McDowell).
Tandy, Merideth and assorted others unexpectedly wake up in a steambath with no easy exit. After spending some time there, it becomes clear that the steambath is a sort of Afterlife, where indifferent souls come to tell their stories to God who happens to be the attendant picking up the towels.
This award-winning PBS documentary sweeps viewers into a seafaring adventure with a community of Polynesians, as they build traditional sailing canoes, learn how to follow the stars across the open ocean, and embark upon a 2,000-mile voyage in the wake of their ancestors.
In the early 1900s, the fictional Catfish Row section of Charleston, South Carolina serves as home to a black fishing community. Crippled beggar Porgy, who travels about in a goat-drawn cart, loves the drug-addicted Bess, who lives with stevedore Crown, the local bully.
A mining operation in Cerrejon, Northern Colombia revealed a treasure trove of fossils from animals that lived ten million years after the KT extinction that killed the dinosaurs. Surprisingly, enormous reptiles were dominate. Scientists investigate who was the apex predator of the era - Titanoboa, a quarter ton giant snake five times bigger than the largest anaconda, or a similarly giant crocodilian with an incredibly deadly bite force. —David Foss
Three million years ago, camels roamed through Greenland’s endless forests and our ancestors lived in the trees. It all came to an end with the Ice Ages. What died and what survived, as natural selection shaped the evolutionary tree during this epochal shift from hot to cold? Until now, scientists have known less about the natural world before the Ice Age than they did about the age of dinosaurs, which ended 64 million years ago. A new discovery is set to reveal this lost world, species by species. Led by Danish gene-hunter Eske Willerslev, a team of scientists for the first time in history is sequencing DNA from before the Ice Age. The picture that emerges is of a hot planet, when forests blanketed the Arctic and carbon levels matched those in our atmosphere today. Is this a portrait of our own climate future?
